NOTES AND QUERIES. 81 



Late Stay of the Swift.— Chiffchaff in Winter. — In my notice of the 

 late stay of the Swift during the past autumn (p. 30) November 3rd is stated 

 to be the latest date on which I saw this bird last autumn. I find, how- 

 ever, on referring to my notes that the date should have been November 

 10th. It may be interesting to note that when out shooting near Brecon 

 on December 21st last I noticed a Chiffchaff or Willow Wren flitting along 

 a hedge. To be certain about the species, I shot it, when it proved to be 

 the former. — C. Young (Llaudaff). 



The Note of the Manx Shearwater.— Larabay Island, off the coast of 

 Dublin, has long been known as a breeding place for this species, though 

 I am not aware that the eggs have ever been brought thence. Watters was 

 informed on Lambay in 1851 that these petrels only visit this island and 

 breed in some years, and not in others. The single white egg found in 

 burrows above the rocks was correctly described, and the bird had decreased 

 in numbers from about fifty, twelve years previously, to a dozen the year 

 before his visit. Prior to this Mr. Montgomery obtained a couple of Shear- 

 waters in a hole in the island, one of which came under Mr. Thompson's 

 notice ; but neither Watters nor Thompson appears to have had personal 

 experience of the bird or its nest on the island. I have always seen a few 

 in the neighbourhood of the island during the breeding season, though 

 never more than about three pairs. Once only, in May, 1882, I 

 believe I started the bird from the land. In July, 1880, during a week 

 spent on board a trawler between Dublin and Carlingford, Shearwaters 

 were continually seen, usually in the afternoon and evening, and in little 

 parties of two or three to about a dozen. A more graceful flight can 

 scarcely be observed. As the season grows later the flocks grow larger, and 

 towards night also they seem to gather together. In broad daylight they 

 keep farther to sea, but towards dusk and during the night they fly about 

 the coast. They feed chiefly at night, and probably keep their nesting- 

 holes by day, and thus elude observation. This brings me to a question 

 which I raised in ' The Zoologist ' in June, 1880, and enables me to correct 

 a false supposition there made. The cry which I for a time believed to 

 belong to a species of Owl proves to be the utterance of the Manx Shear- 

 water. Such a strange, hoarse, weird, half-strangled noise as they make, 

 and heard on land as I heard it, would instinctively be attributed to the 

 throat of an Owl. To Irish folks, who have no "hooting Owl," it 

 is some satisfaction to have discovered so good a substitute. About eight 

 or nine years ago a lad on Lambay Island brought home a couple of young 

 birds, the like of which he had not seen before, though in the habit of 

 rearing seafowl of all kinds. He took them from holes on the north side of 

 the island one evening, and all through the night there came unearthly 

 noises, which terrified the good woman his mother so much that she 

 ordered them to be removed at daybreak as " uncanny." I have no doubt 



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